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The concept of punarjanman or rebirth is a foundational belief in Hinduism, emphasizing the soul's eternal and undying nature alongside the importance of karma (actions). Portraying life and death as part of an ongoing cycle until one attains moksha (liberation), which contrasts with other religions that focus on a single life.
Historically, the roots of Buddhism lie in the religious thought of Iron Age India around the middle of the first millennium BCE. [5] This was a period of great intellectual ferment and socio-cultural change known as the Second Urbanisation, marked by the growth of towns and trade, the composition of the Upanishads and the historical emergence of the Śramaṇa traditions.
Illustration of reincarnation in Hindu art In Jainism, a soul travels to any one of the four states of existence after death depending on its karmas.. Reincarnation, also known as rebirth or transmigration, is the philosophical or religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being begins a new lifespan in a different physical form or body after biological death.
Steven Collins sees such Hindu claims regarding Buddhism as part of an effort - itself a reaction to Christian proselytizing efforts in India - to show that "all religions are one", and that Hinduism is uniquely valuable because it alone recognizes this fact. [53] Some Hindus usually consider "Buddhism to be another form of Hinduism."
In the later Buddhist tradition "liberating insight" came to be regarded as equally liberating as the practice of dhyana. [73] [69] According to Vetter and Bronkhorst, this happened in response to other religious groups in India, who held that a liberating insight was an indispensable requisite for moksha, liberation from rebirth. [74] [75 ...
Bhikkhu Sujato notes that there are three main principles of rebirth in early Buddhism: [38] Rebirth is regarded as an ongoing process to be escaped from in the search for liberation. Rebirth is determined by one's own mind, particularly one's ethical choices. The practice of Buddhism aims at ending rebirth.
The Theosophists used the concept of reincarnation common for Hinduism and Buddhism to substantiate the one esoteric core of these religions. [note 12] Thus, for A. P. Sinnett, an author of the Esoteric Buddhism, Gautama Buddha is simply one of a row of mahatmas who have "appeared over the course of the centuries."
The ahimsa precept is not a commandment, and transgressions did not invite religious sanctions [clarification needed] for laypersons, but their [ambiguous] power has been in the Buddhist belief in karmic consequences and their impact in afterlife during rebirth. [130] Killing, in Buddhist belief, could lead to rebirth in the hellish realm, and ...